The Australian chiropractic community is being scrutinised
more than ever before. Its private and public health funding
has been questioned as this billion-dollar industry struggles to
prove its effectiveness. Universities teaching chiropractic have
also come underire from lobbying groupsthat insist that pseu-
doscientiic“health” courses should be dropped.
In an effort to stem the bleeding, chiropractors in Australia
are increasingly diversifying their services.Suchattempts usually
centre on techniques that appear complex on face value.
One example of this is functional neurology, practitioners of
which claim they can treat a plethora of conditions by using
electroencephalography (EEG) to locate and treat“weak” areas
ofthe brain. These weak areas are then magically improved
with a combination of chiropractic adjustments, brain training,
massage and even diet.The claims that practitioners make about health conditions
they can supposedly treat are strange and dangerous. Such claims
include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart arrhythmias, epilepsy,
multiple sclerosis, peripheral neuropathies and strokes. These
are all serious health conditions that usually require a team of
trained medical personnel to diagnose and treat. If the treat-
ment of any of them was left solely to an individual who prac-
tices functional neurology, the consequences would be dire for
the patient.
A typical client would not understand the mechanisms of
brain scanning technology and thus be able to evaluate the legit-
imacy of the claims. A lay person wouldn’t immediately link
these kinds of techniques to chiropractic, and this serves to
establish some kind of legitimacy in the client’s mind, but there
is no credible scientiic research whatsoever to back up any
claims made by the proponents of functional neurology. The ield
itself is a simple rebranding something called “chiropractic
neurology”, and uses endless word salads in an effort to suggest
scientiic credibility. Practitioners of this brand of pseudo-
science often rely on testimonials and junk science to sell their
product and themselves.What should stand as warnings to anyone thinking of trying
functional neurology are the disclaimers at the bottom of the
web pages of clinics offering functional neurology. For example,
the disclaimer published by the Australasian Academy of Func-
tionalNeurology (http://www.aafn.org.au) states that the “prac-
titioners.... are not medicallytrained”,the information is “not
meant to convey a medically trained opinion, orspeciically a
medical neurologist [sic] expert opinion,” andthat“Patients
who attend for functional neurology services should seek a
second opinion from a registered specialist neurologist or medical
practitioner”.
While chiropractors may believe that these disclaimers estab-
lish them as valid members of the allied health community,
claims that these techniques are effective make a mockery of
the substantial training and expertise required to identify and
diagnose these complex disorders.
EEGs do allow electrical activity of the brain along the scalp
to be recorded, but the extraordinary hubris of those who prac-
tice functional neurology is revealed by the very tool that is the
lagship oftheir whole operation.
EEGs are wonderful and legitimate tools, but they have one
very important drawback. They measure brain activity below the
upper layers of the brain very poorly.Sohere we have a treat-
ment based on the premise that the whole brain is scanned to
identify weak areas but it uses a tool that can’t accurately measure
the whole brain.
In addition, the resolution of the EEG is poor and the
proclaimed correspondence between brain regions and func-
tional abilities is far from established in the scientiic literature.
This is why EEGs are only typically used to identify seizure
activity and not measure brain morphology or functional abil-
ities. This requires much higher resolution such as functional
magnetic resonance imaging.
While EEGs are often used in psychological research to look
at differences in brain activity between brain hemispheres, no
psychologist with even a rudimentary understanding of the
brain would claim that these trace readings correspond to
complex behavioural disorders such as ADHD and autism spec-
trum disorder. Unfortunately for these chiropractors, neurol-
ogists, neuropsychologists and medical professionals do
understand this technology, and can easily refute these claims.
Marko Petrovic is an exercise physiologist who is currently studying Mechanical Engineering
at Curtin University.46 | MAY 2016
THE BITTER PILL Friends of Science in MedicineAn EEG Only Scratches the Surface of the Brain
Chiropractors claim that “functional neurology” can treat conditions ranging from epilepsy and
Alzheimer’s disease to autism and stroke, but the technology they use isn’t up to the task.So here we have a treatment based
on the premise that the whole brain
is scanned to identify weak areas
but it uses a tool that can’t
accurately measure the whole brain.